The Fog Of War
by Jailbreak
Summary: Innocence can be gained and lost, but some events change the soul forever. Ron struggles with his mission and actions before the final battle, of how he took a life to save another. AU


Well, I wrote this around six months ago and never did anything with it. So here you all are.

Now, writing canon...It wasn't really a priority. This is a kind of future war, and steps had to be taken. If I had to give it a time frame, maybe late in the 7th book. But it is undoubtedly AU in any case. I don't believe Ron is out of character, either: ask yourself the same question he did.

Also, I wrote this for the fight scene, really. I never tried one and I was overdue.

-----

At the beginning, he had been scared. Afraid of the unknown. Afraid of the ultimate unknown, death.

But now, he marched at an exact pace, face set forward confidently. The battlesuit he wore rattled with every step, his gaze just as solid as his armor. The armor dirtied with grime and blood and worse.

His path was set.

Hours ago, he had left on this so-called suicide mission.

He had been on his way out...

...But he stopped hesitantly, slowly. He turned and glanced back at her...

Hermione looked back at him with blurry eyes. Mouth open. Arms and shoulders slouched. Robes in disarray. Hair tousled. With nothing to say, but everything behind her stance.

He reached into his pocket, and threw a coin at her. A single Galleon. She barely noticed and dumbly caught it.

He winked. "What, you've never seen a man's life savings? Keep it safe for me!" He turned and left.

Hermione had no choice but to smile. In the end, that simple act would drive him.

He had been scared, but it had all been cleared after his innocence was gone. He had thought before it had been taken by the war's beginnings...But this was false. War certainly proved to be Hell.

Ronald Weasley had taken a life to save another.

Hours ago, he remembered the report given of some specific Death Eaters who would put the Hogwarts students in extreme danger should a group, or an army, decide to conduct a raid.

Adrian Marr had been one of them. He was an animal...He took sadistic pleasure in torturing his victims before he used them for his own desires and then murdered them.

A professor had said...

"He is a beast. And he should be slain as such."

He had high hopes when the command team came to help. The castle had been under raid for just an hour. But the students were still there...Evacuations and then a counter-attack would follow.

Ron was the one to lead that search and rescue mission.

But he didn't feel right then. In the pit of his gut, he felt it. Something ready to open its maw and consume him. He could **feel** it around him, radiating like a sickness, a beginning of a storm.

Even though it all felt dead around him.

During the turmoil, the chaos, the death, Ron had learned that a lone Death Eater had squirmed into a dorm and taken hostages. Ron prayed to any god listening that it wasn't one on the list. But fate had been cruel to him.

It had been Marr.

Only an hour ago, he had gone though a secret emergency passage to the first years girls' dorm.

As his poked out of a trapdoor, he saw the scene.

Marr, shouting and cursing, delivered the Cruciatus Curse to a lone girl...Claire, if he remembered the name right. He had let the other hostages go on purpose.

So as not to spoil his fun.

Marr delighted in her screams.

Ron finally realized that no words could ever describe the disease that Marr was.  
They, who called him a beast, were wrong. He was much worse than a beast ever could be.

Claire, writhing, screaming and sobbing on the floor from the curse, still reached toward her wand and stood shakily. Marr didn't seem to like it one bit. If he couldn't have his way...

Marr sneered at the crying girl.

But instead of launching a curse as Ron had thought, Marr resorted to a much more enjoyable fight; a physical one. He simply closed the gap between him and Claire.

He grabbed Claire by her collar and lifted her to his eyes.  
His wand was pointed at her chest.

Marr growled at her as hot sparks danced from his wand:  
"Scream for me, birdie..."

Ron had seen enough.

In one giant motion, Ron flew from his hiding spot and tackled Marr across the room in a flurry of motion and furniture, as Claire screamed in surprise, dropped onto her rear end, before scrambling to the corner shivering.

**_CRASH!_**

Ron drove Marr to the ground and punched him square in the jaw, again in the temple, and again below his left ear before Marr, a much smaller man, hooked a leg up between them and booted Ron off onto his back. Marr was up surprisingly fast.

Before Ron could even get up, a chair swung down at him. He gasped, rolling over just in time.

**CRASH!**

The chair smashed against the floor and into splinters. Ron glanced up to see Marr glaring down, lifting up the remnants of the chair, only a leg, but with nails protruding outwards, as he swung down again.

Ron rolled again.

_CHINKT!_

...But this time, the nails of the chair stuck in the floor. Ron jumped up, just as Marr wretched the leg from the floor and swung again.

Ron was not so lucky this time.

The nails grazed his unprotected side, he grunted in pain, blood starting to drip to the carpeted floor.

Ron didn't have time to think as Marr jumped with a growl and swung again in a large arc. Ron acted on instinct and training.

Throwing his arms up in a cross, the leg hitting midway but the nails only an inch from his face, Ron had to think fast. He brought his knee up into Marr's gut.

**WHAM!**  
Again.  
**WHAM!**  
And again.  
**WHAM!**

Marr dropped the weapon and collapsed.

Ron broke away and made a mad dash for their wands which they had dropped when Ron had tackled him. Ron kicked them well out of the way.

Ron started to turn back to face Marr...but was wasn't there. Ron tried to turn again, but was met by a sucker punch to his temple. Another blow walloped to his jaw, Ron became completely disoriented.

In a feat of raging strength, Marr grasped Ron and **lifted** him right over his head before charging toward a door.

**"RRAAAAAUGGGHHHHH!"**

Marr threw Ron right _through_ the door, sliding and then stopping on the debris ridden floor of the bathroom. Ron climbed to his hands and knees, but Marr was already there, holding a fistful of his hair before dragging him over to a sink. Ron attempted to get his footing, but Marr lifted him and brought his head down on the sink.

**_BAM!_**  
Ron's lip split.  
**_BAM!_**  
His nose broke with a crunch.  
**_BAM!_**  
His eyebrow split open.  
**_BAM!_**  
...He was motionless.

Marr tossed him to the other side of the room, bouncing across the floor toward the door.

He looked down and spat on Ron's body, before heading back toward the room...And Claire.  
Not before a metal garbage pail smashed into his head.

**BANG!**

He stumbled forward.

Ron started forward...  
He slammed a fist into Marr's face, breaking his nose, and another blow to his face. He thrust an elbow out and into Marr's throat, jarring his neck and windpipe before smashing the elbow up to his chin. Ron spun on his left heel and roundhouse kicked Marr in the chest back into a wall, but Marr bounced back toward Ron instead of falling flat. Ron laced his fists together and slammed directly down on Marr's head, the devastating blow knocking him down.

Marr still moved to get back on his feet.

But Ron wasn't through yet.

As Marr climbed to his feet, Ron kicked him right in the ribs.  
**"STAY..."**

He grabbed Marr before hoisting him over his head.  
**"...DOWN!**

Ron charged with a cry and threw Marr through what was left of the door.  
He fell on his face across the room.

He wasn't moving.

Ron limped wearily through the room, taking his time. He looked around for his wand in the corner. He found Marr's instead. He motioned to Claire for her to follow him out. Instead of a response, she screamed and scrambled to her feet.

Ron spun around so fast to launch a curse he could have broken his neck.

**_CRACK!_**

The whip crack filled the room as it expertly snapped the wand out of Ron's hand.  
Ron yelped in surprise and held his hand in pain.

Marr stood there, his twelve foot-long personal weapon coiled at his feet. He must have had it on him the entire time, Ron thought.  
He growled.

The whip flew at incredible speed, lashing Ron horizontally across the chest.  
Blood splattered on the walls.

It flew again and snapped at his arms.  
The skin broke, forming nasty welts and seeping blood.

Marr reared back for a stronger strike.

The whip sang through the air...

The bloodied Ron _CAUGHT_ the whip in his hand with a growl.  
"I don't think so, you BASTARD!"

Marr yanked the whip, but he refused to let go. Instead, Ron tripped toward Marr. Marr and Ron grappled with the whip, before he headbutted Marr viciously, blood leaking from Marr's nose, causing him to flinch badly. Ron kneed him twice in the ribs before finally punching up across the face, causing Marr to let go of the whip.

Ron snapped the whip out, about three feet of it's length coiling around Marr's neck.

Ron's eyes flared in rage.  
His hands grabbed the ends of the whip and flung his arms to his sides, tightening the grip of the coil violently.

Marr coughed and kicked, grasping at his own weapon, but to no avail. Ron had too powerful a hold.

Ron's powerful arms shot out again.  
And again.  
And again.

The whip tightened around his neck more and more. Marr was babbling, his face turning different colors.

Ron looked straight into Marr's eyes.  
He saw _fear_.  
The gleam in Ron's eyes increased tenfold.

**"SING FOR ME, BIRDIE!"**

Ron pulled with all of his might.  
"HURRRKK!"  
Marr shook, pulsed, drooled...He finally went limp. His already dead eyes fogging over  
Ron pushed his body onto the floor and spat on him.

He began to search for Claire...and his wand.

There were quite a few rooms in the dorm. They made sort of a "U" shape. He went to to one side first.  
No one on that side.

He continued back to where they had fought...  
As Ron rounded the corner, he realized something was horribly wrong.

...Adrian Marr's body was gone.  
Ron broke into a run.

At the last room before the hallway, he saw Claire through the crack in the door.  
She was screaming for him.

Marr was beginning a wand movement...He could just see his hand. His stance and speech were slow and slurred.  
Ron prayed he was close enough.

Marr began the motion...  
"AVADA-"

Ron burst through the door.

**_"AVADA KEDAVRA!"_**

The girl shrieked.

There was dead silence.

Marr collapsed, finally dead.

Ron pulled Claire to him and held her. He found a stool and collapsed on it.  
He cried with her.

Ultimately, that was how Hermione found them.

Yes, it was true that hours ago Ron had been afraid. But that had faded now. Those events had changed him. Maybe not for the better, maybe not for the worse. It was too early to tell.

Adrian Marr was dead. Ron had killed him to save her life. Was it right? Could he live with himself? SHOULD he?

He would have never imagined that he would have to do such a thi-  
That was bullshit. He always knew. It was a war! Did he think it was going to go off with a surrender!

He had to do it. Marr was an animal. Claire...He would have killed her!

Ron suddenly realized it all. If the girl had been Hermione...Would he have still killed Marr?  
He knew the answer.

Murder did not solve one's problems.  
But this was not murder. Marr was not just one man. There were thousands more just like him. They are all animals, each one no better than the last.  
But tonight...Ron had the chance to make a difference. There was no surrender. They would not be able to take a real Death Eater alive. Ron, at last, had his epiphany.

To end the war that could kill his family and friends, blood must be shed. Whether he did or not, it could not end peacefully. No one with a true heart believes war is a must. Ron never did. But they wouldn't stop. Ron decided that he wouldn't either.

If Tom Riddle wanted blood, he would get it.

And now Claire also walked beside him, as they marched the hallways. So many more joined them. Legions of students and officers and witches and wizards...They would all go down together. They would END THE WAR NOW.

Light filled the hallway, illuminating the ranks of both armies, what had been a simple assault was now the end of it all.

He pressed on.

Ronald was not afraid anymore.

-----

Whew. Pretty intense, eh?

Jailbreak, signing off...


End file.
